Author: David Berger

They all lied.

The ones who went around suborbital and the first ones in orbit and the ones who went to the Moon and the ones who rode the space shuttle and lived on the Mir. They all must have felt it a little bit.

But they all lied.

They all talked about the silence and emptiness of Space, but that’s the most godawful lie in the history of Mankind. Space isn’t silent or empty. Space screams and is full of itself. Where are the aliens, you ask? Space itself is the alien! Space shouts at us: “Keep away! Get out! Stay away from me!”

And then it says something else.

You have to touch Space to hear it and know it. And I’m the one who did it. Actually. For how long? Long enough to hear and meet Space. Don’t laugh at me until you’ve heard me. Then lock me up; throw away the key. I don’t care because Space speaks to me, to me, now, twenty-four hours a day.

You all heard of the accident. You know how four systems failed simultaneously and I flew out, naked, into Space. For forty seconds, Space tore at me, ripped at me, screamed at me: “Keep away! Get out! Stay away from me!” Then, for five seconds more…

I was rescued, alive, from the noise and fullness of Space. Truth is, Space kept me alive. Kept me from boiling, freezing, exploding. For five seconds, Space talked to me, felt me.

Space loved me.